MMAterial Facts (12/23/11) : Holiday Season Edition

Welcome to this week’s edition of MMAterial Facts, where we feature articles from around the MMA community.

***This week’s MMAterial Facts:

Courtesy of Strikeforce

– AP Athlete of Year Voting Snub Shows How Far Mainstream — Not MMA — Has to Go (MMA Fighting)

“Earlier this week, The Associated Press, which provides sports news to millions of readers around the world, named its male and female athletes of the year for 2011. Not a single mixed martial artist was named on a single ballot. It’s not as if non-traditional, non-stick & ball sports were not represented. Among those who received votes were sprinter Usain Bolt, surfer Kelly Slater and marathon swimmer Diana Nyad. “

“There are two groups of people who would like to see some very different visions for the future of fighting. One is hoping for a renaissance of Catch-as-Catch-Can… and the other has a more futuristic view of where the fight business should be heading.
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First, the fine group of humans who are interested in catch wrestling. As you can see up above, I highly recommend Jake Shannon’s book on Scientific Wrestling. He and many others are doing their best to emphasize the importance of Catch on the sport of MMA. Randy Couture did an interview with Eddie Goldman last Friday talking about this very issue in relation to his new book called The Last Round w/ Sara Levin (who worked for USA Wrestling). Book ordering/background information can be found on Amazon & Facebook.

“The self-destructiveness, how have you been able to overcome that?
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Ian McCall: It seems like jail and rehab will teach you how to do it. It’s just the kind of thing where you grow out of it. I just finally one day was like, “Okay, I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough fun. I’ve partied enough in my life. This is kind of over with,” and from there, that was before me and my wife got together and she got pregnant and it was the kind of thing where I did it on my own and we and my wife reconnected because we’d dated on and off for five years and one day we started hanging out again and surprise, now I’ve got two dogs and a baby and a wife (laughs).”

“The bottom line is, I’m done with the guy,” the 34-year-old Sonnen said in an excerpt released prior to the show by TSN. “He and I have no business. . . . He’s so far over the hill and past his prime it’s not worth talking about.
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“I’m going to become the No. 1 contender on January 28th, but despite what you may think, I am not going to use that voucher to fight Anderson Silva. I’ll be looking at Dos Santos, Jones and possibly St-Pierre.
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“I will take that voucher to (UFC president) Dana White and I will pick one of those guys. My time with Anderson is done.”

– Alistair Oveeem is in UFC Undisputed 3 and you have less than four weeks to unlock him (MiddleEasy)

“Ubereem could also come with me to Venice Beach sometime next summer and we can take our shirts off and toss a frisbee on the beach like heterosexual men. Ronda Rousey could judge us on our frisbee throwing techniques and at the end of the day, we could grub down on all the horse meat tacos we want. That’s my only New Year’s Resolution. If that doesn’t go down next year, then at least I’ll know that I’ve unlocked Alistair Overeem in UFC Undisputed 3 simply by liking THQ’s official UFC Undisputed Facebook page — and you can too if you check out the very limited promotion. We’ve even included a video of the first footage of Ubereem within the game for your viewing pleasures..”

“Dana White was right,” Miller wrote in a recent blog post on his personal website. “He made some disparaging comments about my performance, and I agree with him. I displayed the worst of everything that night in the Octagon. I was tense in round one and I locked up after that. I didn’t perform to my potential, and I take full responsibility for it. That wasn’t a UFC caliber performance, and I’m not happy about it- I won’t, however, write a worthless diatribe on myself, because that is not constructive. I elect instead to take this misstep and make something positive out of it.”

“With a little help from the Potato Nation, we spent the last couple days gathering videos of the nastiest, ugliest, most-painful looking knockouts and submissions from this year. Finding 25 of them was the easy part. (Damn, MMA fighters. You seemed especially angry this year. Problems at home?) Putting them in order was a little more challenging. Obviously, Frank Mir snapping Nogueira’s arm at UFC 140 was the people’s choice for #1. But how do you rank a head-kick knockout against a spinning-backfist knockout, when they both leave their victims zombie’d on the mat with their eyes open and their arms in the air?”

“It’s the holiday season and after fighting off crazed moms who just have to get that last bottle of Justin Bieber shampoo, I finally finished my MMA Christmas shopping. I couldn’t find a gift for everyone but I think I did well and hopefully all the fighters and MMA personalities appreciate all the thought and money I put into their gifts.
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Lets have a look under the tree and see what we have, shall we?”

“Exactly four Fridays ago, Urijah Faber’s (Pictured) 19-year-old sister, Michaella Tastad, was involved in a horrific car accident. It was the morning after she had celebrated Thanksgiving dinner with her family.
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Faber’s sister suffered a collapsed lung, spleen damage and received life-threatening head trauma that forced physicians to medically induce a coma at Sutter Roseville Medical Center in Sacramento, California.”

– Satoshi Ishii trains at Black House for the fight with Fedor Emelianenko (LowKick)

“In less than two weeks, 2008 Beijing Olympic Gold Medalist in Judo, Satoshi Ishii, will step inside the ring at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan, for the biggest fight of his young Mixed Martial Arts career, against “The Last Emperor” Fedor Emelianenko. Ishii will be the eighth Japanese fighter to square off against Emelianenko, looking to become the first to defeat him.
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The fight will headline the traditionally stacked DREAM’s New Year’s Eve fight card (Fight For Japan: Genki Desu Ka Omisoka 2011), which will feature blockbuster JMMA names such as Shinya Aoki, Katsunori Kikuno, Satoru Kitaoka, Hiroyuki Takaya, Tatsuya Kawajiri, and many others.”

“Everyone loves to see the underdog win, especially because they never expect it. In MMA, unpredictability is a constant variable that truly makes it one of the most exciting sports out there. Sometimes, it’s not even the underdog, but rather the fighter that most thought had zero chance at all to win, let alone survive the fight.
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As this year wraps up, it’s time to look back and see who were the biggest underdogs that shattered expectations and, even if just for one night, made a name for themselves and proved everyone wrong. This is not a list of amazing comebacks in a fight, rather the matches that should have gone one way, and ended up entirely different. So, let’s jump into the top ten biggest MMA upsets from 2011!”

“This list is the top 10 gifts for the 2011 holiday season!
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Do you have a special MMA fan in you life? Are you an MMA fan that is just looking for an excuse to buy more MMA stuff? Well, for the next 10 items, please think of yourself in the third person and shop as if you were shopping for someone else!”